Known systems enable dispensing and activation of pre-paid cards, such as may be used in the telephone industry. Exemplary patents relating to pre-paid cards include U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,973,172 and 6,957,737. Such systems generally are designed to dispense a card or printed paper to the ultimate user of the card or printed paper or at least to someone that can securely transfer the card or printed paper to the intended user.
However, there are circumstances under which the purchaser of the card or printed paper is not the intended user of the card or printed paper and there is no secure method of transferring the card or printed paper to the intended user. For example, if a child is away at camp and a parent wants to send a prepaid calling card to the child, the card is at risk in the mail because the card has been activated by the parent at the time of purchase. Similarly, prepaid cards are often bought by sponsors, and then gifted to users. The gifting process often involves delivering prepaid cards by insecure delivery channels such as mail or public networks.
In credit card systems, there exist authorization methods whereby a card issuer sends a credit card to a customer and requests (e.g., via a sticker on the card) that the customer call an authorization center using the telephone number that is registered to the account. Alternatively, other confidential information about the customer's account (e.g., the primary account holder's mother's maiden name) can be used to authenticate the card. However, as such information is confidential to the account, one would not want to disclose such information to a third party just to give that third party a prepaid card.
Accordingly, there is a need to address the national and international transfer of focused payments among different parties, e.g., relatives and friends. Similarly, there is a need to avoid known insecure delivery methods which might result in stolen or misdelivered physical or virtual cards which can be used by persons who were not the users intended by the sponsor.